I know it does this by a given flag, but in some tests I have seen some HEADs between my GETs. I haven't used ab for long time, so don't quote me on that. Have u tried httpress[1] as a benchmark tool?

How about a simple check against the first byte equals G (DEC 71) if it is a GET? Shouldn't be that expensive, I think.

Thanks for creating it.

[1] https://bitbucket.org/yarosla/httpress/wiki/Home